Plot: The war with Kerrat has come to a standstill, but the Falx incursions into the Kingdom's lands continue. With no word from Sir Garth's Northern expedition to destroy the Undead, Queen-Marshal Lara wishes to end the foreigner's threat as soon as possible. To this end, she has called the Crimson Crusade, gathering her followers for a counter-attack into Falx lands.

Intro

Princess Lorreaine: "You called for me, my queen?"

Queen Lara: "The time has come. Tell the men to get ready to leave, and send me General Kage and General Fishstache. I have need of them."

"As you wish."

"Greetings gentlemen. I'll have to inform you, the Falx have created another large portal."

Jubei: "What? We've smashed their positions countless times! They couldn't possibly have had the time to build one!"

"Indeed you have, but I let them set up this one, pretended I failed to notice it. For our invasion of their world, we'll need to capture a portal of our own, and it's beyond our abilities to make one. I want you and your Hitokiri, along with Fishstache's Water Demons, to go there and drive out the Falx. My mages will guide your way, but none of our other forces will interfere."

"Milady?"

"We'll move through as soon as you capture the portal. I want my forces to be fresh when we reach the other side, as there's no telling what will be waiting for us. You'll stay behind and guard the portal. If our Crusade is beaten back, you are to destroy the portal."

"We'll depart immediately!"

Falx encampment, a few days later

Captain Mustachio: "Sir, a large group of Hitokiri is headed this way."

General Alejandro: "Hah! Tiresome gnats! They are too late! Take half of our forces and go drive them out!"

"Shall we abandon our fortifications?"

General Alejandro: "Don't tell me you are afraid of these barbarians, captain! The men are yearning for a fight, so go!"

Some time later...

Alejandro: "Back already?"

General Croses: "It's me. You let our men walk into a trap, General. More enemies appeared as if out of nowhere. It's too late to fall back. Do I need to remind you one more defeat will mean I'm to take your place?"

"What?! Gather the rest of the men, we'll drive those barbarians out of the hills!"

Set-up soon

Last edited by Bragallot on Thu Nov 01, 2012 5:30 pm, edited 5 times in total.

The Falx have been trying to fortify this valley, but haven't proceeded much with their work yet.

Those small lakes were used by the Water Demons to ambush the Falx.

Apart from their regular forces, they have a domesticated Yeti and an enslaved ice giant in their ranks.

Captain Mustachio commands the left flank.

This battle will be fought slightly differently than you're used to.

To keep an army's turn from lasting too long (since they're both huge) or doing too much damage to the other army before it can move, instead each army moves one squad / unit in turn until all have been moved. This will happen mostly clockwise so we could keep track of which units had already spent their action.

The red guys are Falx levies, I really wish I had more shields for them.

The Falx on this side outnumber their enemies, but since those enemies are Hitokiri, they'd better not get too comfortable.

General Croses leads the cavalry. They are Falx lancers, again without shields, but trained to be able to use their lances even when they're not charging. This makes them potentially devastating, if more vulnerable than normal cavalry.

They're faced by the main body of the Hitokiri army, the Ashigaru.

Who are supported by cavalry. I'm glad I finally managed to get them in a fight. I had to remove the Bigger Hats though.

Falx positions behind the river. Their ballista is slightly larger than the Hitokiri's. It's operated by two barbarian slaves.

So, that's the set-up, part I soon.

Last edited by Bragallot on Mon Oct 22, 2012 3:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

This battle was played with two people I'll refer to as D and Al Bundy. I played the Falx, D the Hitokiri and Al Bundy the Water Demons. D and I decided it would be cool if the battle were to start of with a duel between the two best warriors on both sides, so Jubei and Croses dismounted to have a fight. Jubei has the advantage because of his 3d6 damage turquiose katana (1d6 more than Croses' Bloodstained Blade), but that doesn't scare the Falx General.

In fact, he scores the first hit as he lunges for Kage and stabs him through the gap in his armour (-1 HP).

Kage responds with a whopping 15 damage, but Croses blocks just enough of it to avoid damage.

The fight goes back and forth for a while, both heroes trying to strike at each other or use heroic feats to get free hits... (I think there were 2 more rounds of combat)

... until a successful feat by Croses finishes Kage off. At this point I feared D was going to ragequit, but he staid calm, vowing to make Croses' death his ultimate goal this game.

The hydromancer is the first to act, creating a layer of ice on the hardened skin of the elite axemen, giving them +1 armour.

Mustachio buffs his archer's skill, giving them bonus accuracy.

The axemen charge the wall of pikes and are met with a hail of crossbow bolts, but they are so they charge right through it.

The clash is brutal. The axe men fight well and kill all but one of my halberdiers with some ridiculous damage rolls, but Al Bundy finds out charging a wall of pikes is dangerous as he loses all four of his men. I recall both of us were happy with the outcome.

Alejandro tries to buff the armour of the levies facing the Hitokiri to even up the odds, but fails and finds their armour decreased instead!

Fat Olaf runs into the water and tries to taunt my centurion into attacking him, which would of course drown him.

The feat fails and the centurion gets so pissed off he shoots Olaf for 1 HP of damage.

On my turn I have the centurion charge in anyway. Steel clashes against steel repeatedly, but the fight remains undecided.

Al's halberdiers try to take advantage of the levies' lowered armour, but piss poor damage rolls mean no one dies after even 2 rounds of combat.

The Technoviking leading the squad takes a blast from the flintlock to the face, but merely shrugs.

D's ballistae roll up, firing at my cavalry and taking down one lancer.

The unnamed Highlord is none too amused and calls down a...

fireball.

You can imagine him laughing maniacally as the fireball explodes and kills both crewmen, also cutting off the path with fire and damaging each ballista by 1 SP.

The Trogdor continues undisturbed, the others stay back or search another route. D's mounted archers try to take out my centurion, both miss.

Another volley from my crossbowmen is unsuccessful, while the flintlock Ashigaru are not. My centurion bites the dust. Did I forget to take this picture? Aaargh.

D's Flintlock and Firebomb troops are still a little too far away to attempt a charge (even though they're vulnerable) and I have little faith in my war machine's ability to hit anything, so I have the barbarian slaves and the squad push it forward to crush two swordsmen into pulp.

The healer keeps beating the dead guy with his stick, but nothing happens. At this point he was already being nominated for most useless fig on the field.